 Norma Nixon Schofield - The Widow Schofield loves “faraway places with strange-sounding names” and travels every chance she gets. Originally from Pittsburgh, PA, she lived ten years in South America. Although she studied in Irvine, California and lived in rural Connecticut until the awful school shooting, in her heart she’s a New Yorker and never far away from the big city from which she can easily hop to London, her late husband’s big city. Norma writes about murder in exotic places and is currently finishing the novel her husband left her when he died. Yes, it’s taken her that long to let go. “We always planned to write a novel together just never got around to it. This’ll be it,” she says. Her second novel, set in Kumasi, Ghana, the seat of the ancient Ashanti nation, is in progress. She can be reached at [email protected]. Norma has traveled with the Peripatetic Writing Workshops to Guatemala, Tuscany, Sicily, Northern Italy, Florida, and Woodstock, NY. You can read her beautiful essay on grief, "No Longer George Schofield's Wife," in Letting Go: An Anthology of Attempts, edited by ME Hughes. Letting Go is an anthology y of true stories. As a writer of fiction, did you find it harder to write a nonfiction story? Actually, a natural born analyst, I’m a better writer of nonfiction than fiction. I went from writing scientific and business reports in New York to working as a journalist in Venezuela. I’m much better at exposing characters for what they are than I am at trying to breathe humanity into them. What do you enjoy most about writing? I love being in the company of other writers. At Thrilerlfest a couple of weeks ago in New York, I was amazed at how much energy flows from writer to writer as they share their ideas on the craft of writing. You have only to walk up to a stranger and ask, “What do you write?” and a full-blown conversation follows. I love it. That and the fact that I’m learning and practicing new skills every time I write.  Norma with well-known author Walter Mosley at Thrillerfest What’s the hardest part about writing for you? Carving out the time to do it. Where do your ideas come from? All over. Where I’ve been. What I’ve seen. Now more and more the headlines. I’m an international person. How much time each week do you devote to writing? Since Thrillerfest, I try to write 2-3 hours per day. I'm told that the unconscious gets involved if you do it daily. What are you working on? I’m working on a mystery set in 1975 in pre-Chavez Venezuela when the price of oil had just doubled. What has been the most surprising about learning your craft? I am always surprised and happy when people talk about my characters as though they were real people. Someone was in tears once because he didn’t think the main character should treat his girlfriend so badly and someone else disagreed. Do you think workshops have helped you become a better writer? Yes. Years ago I was told at a Maui Writers Conference led by Sam Horn that you need to see the physical reaction of people to what you’ve written. It’s more important than what they’re saying because they don’t want to hurt your feelings. But you can see in their faces and hear in their voices what they really think about your work. Tell us any secret rituals you have for getting started each day. Apparently, I surround myself with episodes of a British comedy (Doc Martin, Death in Paradise, or Last Tango in Halifax at the moment) while I’m setting up. Feeding the cats, no dirty dishes in the sink, making sure I’ve taken care of anything that will distract me for the next couple of hours. Then I switch off Netflix and get to it. Any writers you like to read to inspire you to write (or if you're blocked?) Lots. I started writing in earnest when I read Day of the Jackal by Forsythe. Then I picked up again when I read Elizabeth George’s novels set in England. Recently turned on to thrillers and I think that might be my niche. I love Chris Reich who writes about international topics and one of his books is soon to be serialized on TV, and Hank Phillippi Ryan and Meg Gardiner who write thrillers that are based more on the lives and concerns of women. Who do you trust to read your work while in progress? I lost my first reader when my husband died. Now I have to trust in my workshop buddies. Who do you never give your work to to read while in progress? My daughter. Do you have any advice for other writers?
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 David Turnoff was born in Philadelphia and raised in Miami, Florida. After living in various parts of the Northeast and Midwest, he settled in New York City, where he met his wife, Theresa, and their three children were born. While living in New York, David began writing short fiction and attended several writing workshops, most consistently with Martha Hughes. After many happy years in New York, an impending space issue following the birth of their third child and a subsequent late October hurricane prompted a move. He currently resides with his family in Berkeley, California. In his spare time, he continues to write short fiction. You can read David's essay, "What You Are Expected to Expect When You Are Expecting" in Letting Go: An Anthology of Attempts, edited by ME Hughes. "It takes me awhile to feel comfortable with an idea for a story and the characters who will populate the story. There is usually a drawn out process of at least several weeks where I work out a lot of seemingly random ideas, mainly in my head and also in a notebook." Letting Go is an anthology of true stories. As a writer of fiction, did you find it harder to write a nonfiction story? I was a bit wary of writing a nonfiction piece. I don’t have much experience with the form, and I was worried that trying to write about myself would be creatively inhibiting by limiting the possibilities of what could happen. But then I found that when I wrote in the second person, it allowed for a comfortable distance from myself. It freed me up enough to tell the story I wanted to tell while still being able to surprise myself at times with some of the ideas that came out on the page. What’s the hardest part about writing for you? Getting started. It takes me awhile to feel comfortable with an idea for a story and the characters who will populate the story. There is usually a drawn out process of at least several weeks where I work out a lot of seemingly random ideas, mainly in my head and also in a notebook. It’s a searching period that is mostly unpleasant, because there is no clear sense of direction, just a collection of free form phrases or images or the personality or physical trait of a character. Then at some critical point, all of these loose ideas start to coalesce into the basic framework of a story. From that point on, I am able to write somewhat coherently and move the plot forward. What has been the most surprising about learning your craft? How important writing consistently is for developing skills and keeping the creative juices flowing. Also, how important reading is for improving one’s writing. I have to be careful not to let something I’m reading “contaminate” my own writing voice. But other than that, reading other pieces (either fiction or nonfiction) helps me move my own writing along. Do you think workshops have helped you become a better writer? Absolutely. It has helped me enormously to receive feedback in the workshop setting. A good workshop provides a healthy combination of objectivity (where you don’t have a separate relationship with the other participants) and what I call "technical empathy" (where the other participants understand the writing process and can consider your work in the context of the stage of development it is in). Workshops also help me by imposing deadlines for finishing drafts and revisions. Who do you trust to read your work while in progress? My wife usually has a good take on my writing, what’s working and what needs to be clarified or fleshed out more. She’s supportive and is a good sounding board when I have questions about plot or tone. She also gives useful feedback without getting distracted by the incompleteness or clunky sections inherent in early drafts. Who do you never give your work to to read while in progress? With one or two exceptions, I don’t share my early drafts unless I’m in a workshop. It is often tempting, especially when I am excited about what I’m working on, but I’ve found that that has more to do with ego, and in practice showing my work too soon leads more to distraction than any usefulness (despite the much-appreciated interest and support of friends and family members). Do you have any advice for other writers? If you want to write, then you have to write. Waiting for the right set of circumstances does not help. It doesn’t get any easier, and there's never a better time. (You may at some point have more time, but it isn't better time.)  On July 27th at 7:00 pm, Letting Go authors David Turnoff and Sue Parman will be reading from their essays. They'll be joined by Gigi Pandian for a great event at Books, Inc, Berkeley. To celebrate their reading, here again, is the interview with author and artist Sue Parman. Next week - David Turnoff.  Sue Parman, self-portrait Interview with Sue Parman - Author, Poet, Playwright, and Painter You can read Sue Parman's beautiful essay, "The Holy Ghost Bird,"in Letting Go: An Anthology of Attempts. Retired professor of anthropology and the author of numerous academic books (including Scottish Crofters, now in its second edition), Sue Parman lives in Oregon where she has won numerous awards for poetry, plays, essays, short stories, and art. Her most recent book combines poetry and art (The Carnivorous Gaze, Turnstone Press, 2014), and her most recent article is a memoir based on her correspondence with Tolkien (“A Song for J.R.R. Tolkien,” The Antioch Review, 2015). Web site: www.sueparman.com Letting Go is an anthology of true stories. As a writer of fiction, did you find it harder to write a nonfiction story? I love the power that fact lends to story-telling. Fiction is always grounded in nonfiction (the details of memory and observation), and nonfiction requires the rules of fiction to take flight. A story about a bird requires knowledge of birds; a detailed description of a bird would be boring without the underlying structure of plot and character. Having said this, I think it’s harder to write nonfiction for two reasons: one, you can get so mired in “facts” that you go off the rails of a good story; and two, the details of memory are frequently painful. I found it very difficult to write “The Holy Ghost Bird” because the memories that inspired it were so painful; but it was cathartic to shape it into a story. Fiction can heal. Birds make great metaphors. Because they fly between the ground and the sky, they can represent freedom, or messengers between gods and men, or vehicles to convey souls to the land of the dead. In New Guinea, men call themselves “dead birds” because of a myth that explains why men must die. In 2012 a short story of mine called “The Spirit Bird” was published in The Grove Literary Review. Similar title to the one in Letting Go, similar emotions of longing and loss, but a completely different story vehicle: a young Muslim widow visits the grave of her ancestors in Sulawesi. Fiction gives us wings. What do you enjoy most about writing? I find writing to be cathartic and freeing. I love the words themselves (I read the OED as a form of play and source of poems), and I love the rhythm of language and its capacity to build worlds, arguments, persuasions, expressions of love and hope, fury and disdain. I miss letter-writing but am intrigued by the potential of social media for haiku-like utterances. Writing takes me to a liminal zone where I can transform the mundane realities of life into beauty. The pursuit of beauty is paramount—it is the essence of a creative life well lived, whether as a writer or any other occupation. At the close of a Navajo Blessing Way ceremony are the words to walk in beauty. With beauty all around me may I walk. In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, lively, may I walk. To be a writer is to walk in beauty—immersed in it, gathering it, experiencing it, sometimes capturing it. To be a writer is not poetry or journalism, school or reputation. It’s a way of life, consciously living from one unpredictable moment to another without a skin--a kind of pilgrimage to live out all the lines of one’s body. As a writer, my goal is to have created beauty that leaves people breathless and thinking what, where, how, why, and I am. How much time each week do you devote to writing? I write every day. When I was teaching, I got up at 4 a.m. and wrote until 7 a.m., then went to work. I still get up at 4, but now I can write in chunks throughout the day, and how long I write depends on what project I’m caught up in. Sometimes I get caught up in art projects instead. I worry sometimes that I’m less systematic and disciplined than I was when I was working, but I’m having a lot more fun. What are you working on? Last June I joined an art critique group, and after one of our meetings I dreamed of a flower that was shades of brown. I woke up with an art mantra running through my head: “Color gets the credit, value does the work.” I sat down and wrote a short story, “The Brown Study,” that I entered as a first book chapter in a contest sponsored by the Oregon Writers Colony. It won first place, and within two months I had the first draft of a book tentatively titled The Flowers of Rappaccini from the Nathaniel Hawthorne story about a woman raised by her father in a garden of poisonous flowers who herself becomes poisonous to others. I’m now on the third draft, and have been describing it as a literary-eco-thriller set in the Amazon rainforest. What has been the most surprising about learning your craft? At the heart of every creative act lies a burst of spontaneous humor, a form of play. I’ve come to recognize this feeling, this sense of surprise, without which a writing project is flat, uninspiring, and boring. I touch on these ideas in my essay, “An Evolutionary Theory of Poetry,” VoiceCatcher (posted July 29, 2013) Do you have any advice for other writers? Are you kidding? Writers take advice? Do you think workshops have helped you become a better writer? Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that workshops, critique groups, and First Readers provide useful feedback, training in getting used to putting your writing up for public view and criticism, and the opportunity to learn from other writers. No, in the sense that unlike an art workshop, you can’t really learn from other people’s techniques; you only catch little glimpses of finished writing. The usefulness of a workshop depends a lot on where you are in the writing process. New writers benefit from discussions of craft—how to construct plot and character, for example. Writers who have finished two or three drafts of a manuscript would benefit from workshops that work on whole manuscripts. I’ve found very helpful information about workshops from magazines such as Poets and Writers, and from fellow writers in local writing organizations (such as the Oregon Writers Colony). Tell us any secret rituals you have for getting started each day. I write as soon as I wake up. Sometimes I have an idea from a dream; sometimes from something I’ve been reading, especially nonfiction (e.g., James Prosek’s “Eels”). I write my initial ideas sitting in my favorite chair that looks out a window; I use a yellow pad and pens that vary with what I’m writing (a fountain pen for poetry, a liquid gel pen for prose—I LOVE pens). Once I get going, I write with a computer on a treadmill desk—a great alternative to sitting. But the most important ritual: write. Or as my father used to say, “Don’t get it right, just get it written.” Any writers you like to read to inspire you to write (or if you're blocked)? I’m an omnivorous reader, from Tolkien to Sci-Fi (The Ship Who Sang, The Foundation Series, Something Wicked This Way Comes) to poetry (Anne Carson, Kay Ryan, Dylan Thomas) to mystery (Raymond Chandler, The Bee Keeper’s Apprentice, Scandinavian noir) to literary (Cloud Atlas, J.M. Coetzee, Dickens) to books about writing (Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Novel, The Making of a Story). The OED inspires me to write. The writing on the back of cereal boxes inspires me to write. Michael Frayne’s “Copenhagen” makes me want to write plays; Montaigne’s Essays make me want to hole up in a tower and blog.  |